Providing the quality and transformative care that Tufts Medical Center’s (Tufts MC) patients need starts with the organization’s 7,000 employees. To attract and retain the best medical talent in Boston, Massachusetts’ highly competitive market, Tufts MC enlisted Cielo as its Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) partner to revolutionize its approach to talent acquisition. Together, they created a successful new recruitment strategy leveraging people, process and technology to deliver top talent and build a lasting talent pipeline.
Turning to RPO
Before working with Cielo, Tufts MC’s recruitment process varied across the organization. Kara Greer, Chief Human Resources Officer, recognized the opportunity to achieve a uniform hiring process and create a positive experience for both candidates and hiring managers. Consulting with outside recruitment experts was key to allowing the Tufts MC team to stay focused on hiring talent while Cielo helped with the TA transformation journey. Alongside Cielo’s recruitment experts, the Tufts MC team developed and implemented a standardized, compliant recruitment process.
The team knew that having the right people – those with a clear understanding of the process – in the right roles was critical to the strategy’s success. So, Tufts MC and Cielo designed a framework outlining the responsibilities and expectations throughout the hiring process for the team’s recruiters, talent acquisition coordinators, and hiring managers. They also crafted a recruitment process guide and hiring leader FAQ document.
To ensure the workflow was as efficient as possible, the team put in place a leading-edge applicant tracking system (ATS). Tech-enabled solutions, like the ability for candidates to self-schedule interviews and conduct on-demand video interviews, transformed the application process into one that is now easier and more effective for candidates and hiring managers. Together, Tufts MC and Cielo created an approach that regularly delivers a positive recruitment experience for all involved.
Tufts MC and Cielo worked closely to establish expectations of the strategic initiatives based on business goals, resources, previous performance, and industry standards. To best measure success, Tufts MC needed access to quality data. Utilizing the robust analytics provided by the ATS, the team now receives valuable insights via real-time dashboards, weekly reports, and quarterly meetings to monitor activity and drive hiring decisions.
“Having a bold talent acquisition strategy is key to our success. We are grateful for the dynamic partnership we have with Cielo.” – Kara Greer, Tufts MC Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer
Targeting underrepresented and early career talent
The improved TA strategy included building a robust talent pipeline to ensure Tufts MC could fill typically hard-to-fill roles faster and with top talent. To do this, the team launched two initiatives targeting two key demographics – underrepresented talent and early career talent – and revived an existing medical assistant program.
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiative:
DEI is a key element of Tufts MC’s business strategy – building an inclusive culture where employees can thrive and partnering with the community to reduce health disparities. Together, the team created a comprehensive strategic approach to recruiting underrepresented talent in leadership roles. The strategy ensures diversity outreach is included in the recruitment marketing plan and focuses on targeted outreach, including through programmatic postings, diversity partner websites, minority-serving colleges and universities, and diversity associations and groups. - University Recruitment Program:
To recruit early career talent and feed the talent pipeline, Tufts MC and Cielo created a university program. The program focuses on engaging talent in six areas: clinical support, nursing, eye center, technology, research, and lab. By creating quality relationships with students and exposing them early to the Tufts MC culture, this program aims to bring students in as interns or externs and then hire them as employees. - Medical Assistant Program:
Tufts MC and Cielo rebooted the existing medical assistant (MA) program with a more strategic lens. The program is designed to improve MA retention and employee satisfaction, recruitment, community partnerships, and internal training and development opportunities. To create a seamless pathway into the program, the team is building quality relationships with universities and students by attending events and one-on-one conversations. Additional recruitment marketing outreach includes newsletters, press releases, social media, and targeted search ads.
While still early, each of these programs has delivered impressive results and the team is surpassing goals in just a short amount of time.
Delivering impactful results
Due to this successful partnership, Tufts MC can make the important hires necessary to deliver top care amid the COVID-19 pandemic while nurturing a strong talent pipeline to fill future openings. The overall impacts of the one-year partnership include:
- Increasing hiring manager satisfaction to 93% in Q3 2021, with 100% hiring manager satisfaction in May and August 2021.
- Decreasing average time-to-fill by 38 days year-over-year – down 13 days in Q2 2021 alone – allowing hiring managers more time to focus on filling other mission-critical roles.
- Boosting the number of offers accepted by 152% year-over-year, getting the right talent into the right roles for business success.
- Hiring a more optimal mix of experienced and novice nurses, ensuring the organization will deliver top care for years to come.
- Decreasing the number of open medical assistant positions by 84% over seven months through the rebooted medical assistant program.
